A Trip to Remember
by hollyg20
Summary: Alternate take on the trip to Aunt Gwen's. It's a PJ fic and slightly AU. Aunt Gwen will play a more important role and all relationships are slightly skewed. Please R&R. Finally updated...Chapter 2 up!
1. Introduction

This is something a little new for me...I usually stick with Harry Potter stories :) But I've wanted to write a Joey/Pacey fic for awhile now. I find them to be such a great couple. They have so much raw energy and chemistry between them. Anyhow, this is slightly AU. For instance, Will never moved away and he and Andie are together (I always wanted him to be more involved). Other things may come along that are AU, so I'm warning you now...if you don't like that stuff then I apologize. Here's the introduction to the action. I have no idea how long this will be or where it will lead ultimately, so if you have any feedback for me please leave a review. Thanks!

**A Trip to Remember**

For most of Joey Potter's life the sun rose and set on one boy. Of course there had been other guys in her life - Anderson, who had given her her first kiss and made her feel beautiful, and Jack, who taught her about art…then told her he was gay - but in the end, Dawson Leery had been the one who mattered most. It all came back to him, that golden haired dreamer who had placed Joey in the role of his soul mate in the movie that was their lives. And she was thankful that he had; he was a part of so much of her life, but ever since he had come back from Philadelphia he was different. He didn't need her anymore. It hurt for awhile, but she found solace in the place she least expected it.

Pacey Witter. Joey didn't know when he stopped being the friend who dried the tears she shed over Dawson, or the ride to pick her up whenever she needed him - like the night she fled Boston and A.J. But suddenly he became more; the less she depended on Dawson for comfort and companionship, the more she began to seek out Pacey's calming gaze and ready heart.

Things began to get complicated when he kissed her. She began to feel things stirring inside of her that she never had experienced before, even with Dawson. Pacey kept her on her toes; he constantly challenged her to follow her dreams in any means necessary, but he was always willing to help her in any way he could. With Pacey, Joey could be herself - her _real _self - and not the complex character Dawson created her into when she was around him. She still had her sarcasm and sharp wit intact around Pacey, but he seemed to thrive on it and recognize it rather than twist it around to toss back in her face later.

And he cared. He really cared about her, in a way that nobody else ever did or could. She knew that Dawson thought he needed her, but she was beginning to have her doubts. Joey thought that while Dawson loved the idea of a soul mate and the idea of her being _his _soul mate, it was really just that - the idea of it. He could live without being her romantic interest, in fact, he had been for quite some time now…but she wanted more. Joey wanted to be needed; she wanted to be everything to someone, not the one standing on the outskirts while the boy she loved for the longest time figured out what it was exactly that he wanted.

Joey's initial outburst at Pacey's kiss was due more to the fact that she found herself returning his kiss, something she never thought she would do. At that moment, it seemed that what was standing right in front of her hit her like a ton of bricks, and she didn't quite know how to deal with it. The world as she knew it turned upside down and she found herself realizing exactly what the feelings and dependency she had for Pacey were all about. On one hand, she was thrilled and wanted nothing more to explore what could develop between them. On the other hand, there was Dawson.

At that point, she had to decide for herself what was more important to her - a lifetime of friendship, or the electric sparks that flew between Pacey and herself whenever they were in the same room with one another. She knew she wasn't going to have much time to work it out on her own seeing as how they were all headed up to Dawson's Aunt Gwen's house for the last time over Spring Break. Joey only hoped that she would be able to come to a decision of what the right thing to do was; made even more difficult by the fact that both the boys in question would be attending. How could she spend the days with Dawson, using words neither of them should have in their vocabulary, when she was secretly yearning to be kissing Pacey? It wasn't fair to any of them: Dawson, because he deserved to be with someone who _wanted_ to be there with him, Pacey, because he didn't even realize how much Joey wanted to be with him, and Joey, because she was stuck in a situation no one should have to be trapped in.

She didn't want to choose. While part of her realized it was selfish in some ways to have both of them in her life - she knew that one would always feel threatened by the other when it came to her - she knew that she couldn't live without either of them. Dawson sharing in her past gave her a link to it, and she felt somehow that she would lose whatever grasp she had on it if she let him go. As far as Pacey went, she hadn't stopped thinking about that kiss since the day it happened…and she didn't want to.

* * *

The day they were leaving for Aunt Gwen's had turned out to be a beautiful day. Dawson and Joey were sharing an uncomfortable silence as they finished loading up the truck, mostly due to the fact that all he was getting out of Joey were two syllable responses. 

"Are you alright, Jo? You seem a bit, I don't know, preoccupied or something today."

"Me? Oh yeah, I'm uh…yeah, I'm fine…" Joey's words trailed off as her gaze shifted to the right side of Dawson. He followed the direction her eyes went and his heart sank as he saw Pacey walking up with his friend Will. Though Dawson didn't want to believe his friends could be capable of anything so underhanded, he couldn't help but be aware of the change in the air around Joey and Pacey lately. Every time they were all in a room together Pacey couldn't keep his eyes off of Joey. At first, Dawson just assumed Pacey was being a good friend and keeping an eye on Joey like he had asked, but then he recognized something else in Pacey's eyes - a sincere, deeply felt affection. He unfortunately was beginning to notice the same look in Joey's eyes whenever Pacey was around.

"Potter," Pacey called by way of greeting. "You're looking incredibly rugged. Couldn't find a shower, or was the creek incredibly rough today?"

"Bite me, Witter. At least I found the time to brush my hair before dragging my sorry ass here this morning," Joey replied with a trademark scowl.

"Alright guys, can we leave the sarcasm here, or am I gonna have to pull over every ten minutes?" Dawson chimed in rolling his eyes at the two, though secretly he was happy to hear them bickering with each other. They had been too close for his comfort lately and the trademark banter made him feel much more at ease about his developing relationship with Joey (or what he assumed was a developing relationship).

"I'll be happy to leave it here as long as the cretin sits nowhere near me," Joey quipped.

"Don't flatter yourself, Potter." Pacey threw his and Will's bags into the back of the truck alongside Joey and Dawson's as Andie staggered up with all of her luggage. She graciously smiled at Will as he took her bags from her and loaded them up. She gave him a kiss on the cheek as she led him to sit next to her in the truck. No one was surprised when Andie and Will got together, and strangely, nobody was happier than Pacey when they did. He figured that everyone should have their shot at happiness, and Will was a good guy. If anybody deserved Andie, he did.

A few last minute instructions from Gale and Mitch, a trip to fill up on gas, and the five friends were on the road. They knew this trip would most likely be the last like it. They knew times like these were far and few between and that they would most likely look back on it for years to come. What they didn't know was that they were driving towards their fate - inexplicable and irreversible - their lives were about to change forever, with just a few words, a single action, or one longing glance.


	2. Gwen's Warning

I'm sure you all realize I don't own Dawson's Creek or it's characters, so let's not bother with that. I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who reviewed...it meant a lot to me to get so many nice ones since this is my first DC fanfic :) Sorry for the long wait between updates, too. My computer crashed and it took a month to fix. Not only that, but I lost everything...all my documents being the worst loss of all. So now I'm trying to rework what I had of this story. All I can say is, bear with me, please! Hope you all enjoy this chapter :)

* * *

**Gwen's Warning**

"Oh my god! Joey…Dawson! You guys are so grown up!" Dawson's Aunt Gwen ran out to greet the teenagers in a whirlwind of raw energy as they stumbled out of the jeep . She hugged both Joey and Dawson, then turned around to look at the other three adolescents that were staring back at her.

"Hello," Will greeted. "I'm Will, and this is my girlfriend Andie. Thanks for allowing us to come with Dawson to visit you." He tried to shake her hand but Gwen shooed his hand away and pulled him into a hug. When she let him go she pulled Andie into a quick embrace.

"What polite friends you have, Dawson!" she exclaimed with a huge grin. "I remember when it was only you, Joey, and that little troublemaker Pacey…who isn't so little anymore, now that I look at him. Why are you standing back there? Come and give me a hug!"

Pacey, who by this point was extremely red in the face (much to the satisfaction of one Miss Josephine Potter), walked up slowly to Dawson's Aunt Gwen and gave her a hug. Normally Pacey wasn't one to be so subdued, and it didn't go unnoticed. He couldn't help feeling that he shouldn't be there hugging Dawson's aunt, who was obviously pleased to see him, when he was thinking the thoughts he was about his best friend's soulmate.

"Well, now that we're all acquainted, why don't I show you the sleeping arrangements?" Gwen suggested. Everyone nodded at her and grabbed their luggage to follow her through the house.

She pushed open the door to a large room with a fireplace and one bed. Joey felt a pang of guilt when she saw the unchanged room…it was where she and Dawson used to sleep when they went there as kids. Pacey was usually stuck sleeping on the couch in the living room, which he said suited him just fine; he'd rather sleep on a couch than listen to Joey snore, anyways (that comment earned him three hours worth of Joey chasing him until she finally caught him and gave him a black eye when they were just ten years old). Joey had a rueful half-smile on her face as she thought of that day, and blushed profusely when she saw Dawson looking at her pensively.

"Well, this is it!" Gwen said brightly.

While Andie and Will just looked around with confusion in their eyes, Dawson explained, "This is the only bedroom other than Aunt Gwen's. Am I to assume we're all sleeping in here?"

"Right you are, Dawson!" Gwen looked thrilled that her nephew had caught on as quickly as he had. "I didn't think it would be fair to assign the couch to someone, the bed to two others, and for the other two to have to sleep on the floor. This way, you guys can figure out what it is you want to do. Maybe you can switch off with the bed," she said with a wink to Andie and Will. "Anyways, I think Pacey can testify to how chilly the living room gets at night. I think you'll all want to stay pretty close to this fireplace. I have extra sleeping bags, blankets, and pillows in the closet in case you didn't bring any."

"Thank you, Aunt Gwen," Dawson said while giving her another hug.

"I'll let you guys get cleaned up and maybe rest a bit before dinner," Gwen tossed over her shoulder as she walked out. "It's Dawson and Joey's favorite…spaghetti!"

Once she had walked out of the room Andie exclaimed, "Dawson! Your aunt is awesome!"

"You're just saying that because she basically said we could be in that bed together and she wouldn't care," Will whispered in her ear. Andie immediately turned red in the face and swatted him away.

"…Right," Dawson said, a little uncomfortably. "I think I'm going to head to the bathroom and take a shower before dinner." He opened up his gym bag and grabbed a towel and change of clothes before heading towards the door.

"I'm going to stay right here with my beautiful girlfriend…that is, if she'll let me," Will announced to the room at large while giving Andie the look he knew she couldn't resist.

"I haven't been here in so long," Joey said thoughtfully, seemingly to no one in particular. "I think I'm going to go take a walk and have a look around."

"Mind if I join you, Potter?"

Joey looked up into the pair of deep blue eyes that were her undoing, momentarily surprised by hearing Pacey's voice. He had been so quiet since their arrival that she had almost forgotten he was there, which was highly unusual behavior for her sparring partner.

"It's not so much that I want your company," he explained, "it's just that I don't want to sit and watch my friend here making kissy faces at my ex-girlfriend. Not that it wasn't fun in the car, you guys, but a man can only take so much!"

"Hey!" Will exclaimed as he threw a pillow at Pacey from the bed he was sitting on with Andie. "You had your chance with this lovely lady…and if you want to leave us alone in the room, that's fine by us," he said with a devilish grin.

"God, Joey…Pace, please don't leave me in here with him alone," Andie joked with pleading eyes to them.

"Not good enough, McPhee. You never were able to hide your true feelings. Jo, what do you say we take that walk?"

Joey only nodded, waved to Will and Andie, then allowed Pacey to take her arm and guide her out of the house. It took until they were in the kitchen on their way out the door for it to register with Joey that Pacey had called her 'Jo' instead of 'Potter' and that could only mean trouble.

"Hey!" Joey jumped and jerked her arm away from Pacey's as she heard Gwen's voice coming from the direction of the stove. "Where are you guys off to?"

"W-w-walk," Joey stuttered, while looking down at a particularly interesting piece of broken tile on the kitchen floor - anything not to make eye contact with Gwen. She had _always _loved Dawson's Aunt Gwen, but there was one thing she couldn't stand about her. Gwen had this uncanny knack of knowing exactly what it was Joey was thinking, no matter how much she tried to hide it. At this moment, she wasn't really too keen on Dawson's beloved aunt finding out that she no longer had feelings for her favorite nephew, and in fact, wanted to move on to his best friend who was standing next to her.

"As Joey here so eloquently put it," Pacey elaborated, "we are, indeed, going for a pre-dinner walk. You can hardly blame us, Gwen…you live in a very beautiful area. You've been here forever…I can't believe you're giving this all up."

Gwen smiled at Pacey indulgently as she said, "Sometimes beauty and tradition aren't enough to make someone want to stick around, am I right Joey?"

Joey forgot her resolve and looked up at Gwen quickly, only to be met by a pair of sad blue eyes poring into her soul. Joey grimaced and looked back down at the tile.

"Well, alright you two, have fun on your walk. Dinner should be ready in forty-five minutes or so. Make it back on time or suffer the consequences."

Gwen had tried to make her last warning sound lighthearted, but from the look on Joey's face she knew it was taken very seriously. She turned back around to stir her sauce as Pacey led Joey out of the kitchen with a very stricken look on her face. All Joey could think was, _she knows_.


End file.
